Hi Everyone,

just wondering if anyone has experienced this. A cake I made was very heavy and tough in the middle, and the heavy part had actually taken the shaped of a circle and the outer part of the cake was as normal pound cake should be, nice, light and a lot crumblier. Has anyone experienced this and any suggestions? Just wondering too fat or heavy handed mixing?

I don't have a clue....wish I could help though!

Jen

My best guess would be that the cake was underbaked. When a cake bakes it will cook from the outside edge in. I know there have been times when i did underbake a cake and the middle was just as you describe..heavy, wet, dense. Again,,my best guess

You didn't mention what size pan you were making, but it sounds like what happens when you try to bake a large, deep round without a flower nail or heating core in the middle. Next time try greasing a flower nail with nonstick spray and putting it upside down in the middle of the pan before you add the batter.

"Heavy" can occur when the flour is measured incorrectly.

Do you use the "scoop and drag" method with a quick shake to level your flour. If so, aerating the flour before gently scooping into a measuring cup and then using a straight edge to level is the preferred method. (Disregard if you weigh you ingredients.)

"Tough" usually occurs when the batter is overmixed (develops the gluten).

Using bleached flour, especially in cakes heavy with butter will keep the butter in better suspension than unbleached flour. (FYI, ALL cake flour is bleached, but not all AP flour. Check the label.)

Handy cake troubleshooting charts:

http://tinyurl.com/2p5bdu

http://tinyurl.com/6lpjww

http://tinyurl.com/32goqe

http://tinyurl.com/6c745g

A great site for scratch baking techniques/help (with recipes and so much more):

www.joyofbaking.com

HTH

thanks everyone for your helpful replies. Sorry for the late reply. I have been trying to find my way back to this thread for days ... lol. Still knew to Cake Central and trying to figure out things. I will look into all your suggestions. Greatly appreciated. I was using ten and twelve inch round tins and I think I added too much milk to the mixture. I think the eggs were a little on the large side so when I added the normal amount of milk it caused that ... I also tried hard not to work the gluten but I'm quite petite so I think the mixing got a little too much cos the mixture was too heavy for me ... lol. Thanks very much JanH for the websites. I will check them out.